To be fair, one example of the non-Michael Douglas-y approach to making movies has to be Ryan Reynolds. And certainly Robert De Niro during his paycheck phase of the early-to-late aughts. Post-Sleuth Michael Caine, or for most of his life. Cuba Gooding during his post-Jerry Maguire cash-in period. Everybody makes a crap movie now and then. Goes with the profession.
A day or two ago Variety‘s Chris Willman attended a Sharon Tate triple feature at the New Beverly — Valley of the Dolls (awful), Fearless Vampire Killers (lesser Polanski but tolerable) and The Wrecking Crew (flat-out stinkeroonie).
Willman: “I enjoyed The Wrecking Crew maybe a little less than the audience at the Bruin in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but what a doll.” What did Willman actually mean when he said he “enjoyed it a little less,” etc.? We can only guess, of course, but my presumption is that Willman hated it so much that at the halfway point he suddenly bolted into the New Beverly bathroom and threw up.
The fact that poor Sharon Tate died in a ghastly and horrific way doesn’t automatically mean that the films she made in the late ’60s were any good.
The spirit of the great Robert Evans has left the earth and risen into the clouds. A fascinating character, a kind of rap artist, a kind of gangsta poet bullshit artist, a magnificent politician, a libertine in his heyday and a solemn mensch (i.e., a guy you could really trust).
For a period in the mid ’90s (mid ’94 to mid ’96), when I was an occasional visitor at his French chateau home on Woodland Drive, I regarded Evans as an actual near-friend. I was his temporary journalist pally, you see, and there’s nothing like that first blush of a relationship defined and propelled by mutual self-interest, especially when combined with currents of real affection.
There are relatively few human beings in this business, but Evans was one of them.
You’re supposed to know that Evans was a legendary studio exec and producer in the ’60s and ’70s (The Godfather, Chinatown, Marathon Man) who suffered a personal and career crisis in the ’80s only to resurge in the early ’90s as a Paramount-based producer and author (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) while reinventing himself as a kind of iconic-ironic pop figure as the quintessential old-school Hollywood smoothie.
From my perspective (and, I’m sure, from the perspective of hundreds of others), Evans was a touchingly vulnerable human being. He was very canny and clever and sometimes could be fleetingly moody and mercurial, but he had a soul. He wanted, he needed, he craved, he climbed, he attained…he carved his own name in stone.
The Evans legend is forever. It sprawls across the Los Angeles skies and sprinkles down like rain. Late 20th Century Hollywood lore is inseparable from the Evans saga — the glorious ups of the late ’60s and ’70s and downs of the mid ’80s, the hits and flops and the constant dreaming, striving, scheming, reminiscing and sharing of that gentle, wistful Evans philosophy.
He was an authentic Republican, which is to say a believer in the endeavors of small businessmen and the government not making it too tough on them.
Rundown of Paramount studio chief and hotshot producer output during the Hollywood glory days of the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s — (at Paramount) Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, Harold and Maude, The Godfather, Serpico, Save The Tiger, The Conversation; (as stand-alone producer) Chinatown, Marathon Man, Black Sunday, Urban Cowboy, Popeye, The Cotton Club, Sliver, Jade, The Phantom, etc.
Not to mention “The Kid Stays in the Picture” (best-selling book and documentary) and, of course, Kid Notorious. Not to mention Dustin Hoffman‘s Evans-based producer character in Wag the Dog.
And you absolutely must read Michael Daly‘s “The Making of The Cotton Club,” a New York magazine article that ran 22 pages including art (pgs. 41 thru 63) and hit the stands on 5.7.84.
Instant victory, hands down, don’t even debate it.
Bruce provides the humanity, name value and a general proletariat compassion and liberal inclination approach. Pete delivers the smart, sleeves-rolled-up implementation of non-woke, non-crazy, forward-looking Millennial practicality.
And if homophobic African-American voters (of which there are quite a few) want to stay home and not vote, fuck ‘em. Bruce and Pete will win in a walk either way.
Everyone I know is slightly concerned about Warren’s chances against Trump, and a lot of people feel a little funny about the schoolmarm thing. (Don’t even mention the prevailing bumblefuck attitudes about Medicare for all.). And Droolin’ Joe is finished, of course. Pete should top the ticket, of course, but the homophobes are ass-draggers.
During last night’s Irishman premiere after-party the subject turned to the Best Supporting Actor race. It’ll obviously be between Al Pacino‘s Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman and Brad Pitt‘s Cliff Booth in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. “They’re both so great and it hurts too much to choose,” I replied. “So the Best Supporting Actor Oscar race should end in a tie. Like it did in 1969 when both Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn won for Best Actress. It’ll feel really bad and wrong if either Pacino or Pitt lose. I’m serious — they both have to take it.”
New York journo hotshots will get the very first peek at Sam Mendes‘ 1917 on Saturday, 11.23. Their Los Angeles brethren will see it the next day (Sunday, 11.24) via “multiple” screenings in the afternoon and evening.
Thanksgiving, by the way, will happen on Thursday, 11.28. Why so late? Because Thanksgiving had been celebrated on the last (or fourth) Thursday of the month since the time of Abraham Lincoln. I say that 11.28 is too late — it should happen on Thursday, 11.21.
I’m not spoiling by stating that Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy (Warner Bros., 12.25), a fact-based legal drama that I caught during last weekend’s Middleburg Film Festival, ends on a positive note. Due to the efforts of a good-guy lawyer (Michael B. Jordan‘s Bryan Stevenson), a falsely-convicted innocent man (Jamie Foxx‘s Walter McMillan) doesn’t rot in an Alabama jail for the rest of his life.
But McMillan’s climatic moment of salvation, which happens in the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, doesn’t entirely work. Because Joel P. West‘s score lays it on too thick — the emotional “Hallelujah” sauce by way of a church choir and an orchestra working its ass off. It’s the only moment in the film that feels like it’s pushing too hard — the rest of it feels suitably restrained and more or less on-target.
I’m not dropping the Just Mercy grade because of West’s “oh dear God” music — it still gets an A minus or at least a B plus. But composers have to be careful not to overplay their hand. Because the right or wrong kind of music at a key moment in a film can make or break, regardless of how good or expert the overall effort might be.
To further my point I’ve pasted Max Steiner‘s main title music for Mervyn LeRoy‘s The FBI Story (’59). On one hand it’s a decent but flat-footed saga of an FBI agent’s (James Stewart‘s Chip Hardesty) career with the bureau; on another it’s a J. Edgar Hoover-approved propaganda film that Hoover almost literally co-directed. It feels like a stodgy chest–beater.
But Steiner’s music, at least during the opening credits, makes you say “wow, okay…maybe this film had some good points that I missed.” It’s spirited and proud-sounding in a marching-band way.
The Austrian-born Steiner (1888-1971) was pushing 70 when he composed the FBI Story music. His best score was for the verging-on-discredited Gone With The Wind, which he composed in his early 50s. His second and third best were for Casablanca and King Kong.
The decision to push Leo’s Rick Dalton performance in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood for Best Actor is fine and appropriate, but also due-deference political. Anne Thompson knows this, of course.
I don’t know which aspect of Kanye West‘s Jesus Is King is more grotesque. The notion of the profligate Kanye expressing strong allegiance for the teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth plus the ongoing obscenity that is Donald Trump. (Or has he backed away from the Trump pallyhood?) Maybe it’s the idea of a super-rich, notoriously flaky superstar promoting King Jesus aka Judean Badass, King Shit of Bethlehem, the boss of bosses. Or the idea of IMAX somehow making an allegedly spiritual venture feel more righteous.
Jesus Is King obviously wasn’t made for your generic West Hollywood smart-ass types but the devotional gospel crowd — I get that. HE nonetheless disapproves.
